Transsexual tattoo removal causes dispute

Post your comment

Reader comments

This is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous and a good example of why we can’t get people to take gay/trans rights seriously. This is one of the most self-centered and outrageous arguments that I’ve heard in a long time. One might argue that a person should get funding for sex reassignment surgery because it is a condition for which they weren’t responsible. However to ask the public to pay for the removal of a tattoo that the person chose to put on her body, because it now makes her “uncomfortable” is just outrageous. She made the decision to put the tattoo on her body and she paid for it. She has every right to make the decision to have it removed. However, it is up to her to pay for it. As a person with “nine estranged children” she doesn’t exactly sound like a poster girl for the cause of taking responsibility for one’s own actions.Anti-gay/trans crusaders will have a field day with this selfish woman and will use this shameful story with razor sharp precision to attack the gay community as a whole as selfish, shallow, vain, hedonistic, unethical and immoral. With idiots like this woman making the headlines, it is very difficult to argue otherwise regardless of the fact that she is an individual and not representative of the gay/trans community at large. This selfish woman will do more to turn public opinion against gay/trans rights than all the right wing religious nuts and ultra-conservative bigots combined.I for one think it’s high time that we stop loading the gun for our enemies. We’re just making their jobs easier. The next thing you know we’ll just shoot ourselves in the head to save them the trouble of aiming.Let’s Wake up and GROW UP people!

Absolutely. I’m trans, and this has pissed even me off. I have a tattoo I don’t want, a big one, but I will have it removed at my own expense. With the NHS in such an economically diabolical state, this is simply an outrageous waste of money.Tattoo removal, like breast implants and other “cosmetic therapies”, should NOT be paid for by the tax payer. Simple as that. If the NHS could afford it, then fine, but with Herceptin being refused to women, the new daibetes inhaler being ruled too expensive for the NHS and people being allowed to die for financial reasons, this kind of staggering wastefulness is just too much.I can empathise with Tanya, most certainly, but I cannot condone this sort of treatment. I see the financial problems within the NHS, and made a decision to do my bit, and NOT to seek cosmetic treatments. I’ve also planned for my SRS out of my own pocket, it seemed the right thing to do at the present juncture. Just like paying for any other treatment privately.Not desireable, but we have to be pragmatic about this. If our taking up funds, which is our right yes, means even one woman can’t have Herceptin, or a child cannot be kept alive, I want no part of it. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and there are others in more need than I, or any other trans person, out there.

Ah yes, the wonders of socialist drive thru government approved healthcare. While my country tis of thee… is sliding towards a bastion of socialist gimme gimme healthcare (if we do not end up pissing off the rest of the world first.) stories such as this reaffirm my libertarian beliefs, and make me weep as a transsexual female.Just like many of us who were convinced acting macho, tough, ergo more male would cure us, I too have a couple of tattoos that I hope to have removed. Never would I ask that taxpayers finance the removal of a failed attempt at acting male.

Whilst accepting the difficulties in balancing budgets and the seemingly undefendable ‘post-code lottery’ healthcare system. I do feel that there were a number of things exaggerated here. I funded my own surgeries and therefore placed no additional burden on the NHS. This however was not borne out of my wish to be a martyr to a poorly funded/managed healthcare service but to ensure that I had excellent surgery which sadly meant going overseas.But £20,000 for SRS? Who on earth is profiteering? The patient or the healthcare providers (my seven hour operation in Thailand cost six thousand dollars….? As for tattoo removal against ‘Herceptin’ no contest. But then maybe next time someone has need for a chronic upper airways disease brought about by smoking we should consider the cost there or maybe cardiac problems exacerbated by poor diet… Where actually is the line…?Healthcare is a right not a privilege and it should be for all and if the NHS wasn’t so expensive to run then maybe we could do a lot more.As a practitioner I can say with absolute conviction that in every area where I offer a service similar to that which the NHS provides I am less expensive and provide a much more ‘patient oriented service’. The decision to have tattoos removed should be the same as the decision to have them in the first place and that means self funded… But do we know how many tattoos are removed on females in the pursuit of healthcare?Emma

PinkNews covers religion, politics, entertainment, finance, and community news for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the UK and worldwide. Founded to produce broadsheet quality journalism for the LGBT community, we cover politics to theology in an intelligent manner.